Year of Hell (episode)
An obsessed Krenim commander alters history to restore the Krenim Imperium at any cost; Voyager comes under constant attack by Krenim warships while trying to pass through their space, receiving major damage. Summary Teaser - Blink of an Eye It is a cheerful looking day on a Zahl colony with blue skies and lots of sunshine. It isn't long until the cheerfulness of the day is interrupted by the appearance of a large starship in the atmosphere. A large beam appears from the ship and fires down at the city, launching a shock wave that eradicates everything in its way. After it is all over, the city has completely disappeared and been replaced by undisturbed nature. The colony has been completely erased from time. On the bridge of the Krenim starship, the executive officer, Obrist, reports to his commanding officer, Annorax, that the removal of the Zahl colony had changed history, but did not restore the Krenim Imperium. In order to restore the entire Imperium, Annorax decides that the entire Zahl culture has to be removed from history by removing the Zahl homeworld from time. Act One - A Journey of a Thousand Miles... On board the [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]], the senior staff are celebrating the inauguration of their new astrometrics lab. On the expansive display is the Milky Way Galaxy, and Captain Kathryn Janeway gives the introduction to its purpose, but she has no idea how it works. Seven of Nine explains this in how sensors measure the radioactive flux of the stars in the galaxy and use the information to determine their location in the galaxy. Due to this, Harry Kim and Seven of Nine were able to plot a new course to the Alpha Quadrant, which is overlaid onto the galaxy display. The new plot will save five years from the journey. The inauguration is interrupted when B'Elanna Torres notes a number of M-class planets on the course nearby. Seven zooms the display which reveals Spatial Grid 005, home of the Zahl. Chakotay thanks the senior staff for coming, but before they can all leave, the Doctor steps forth and begins reciting a very long speech with passion, even including quotes from Charles Dickens. However, halfway through his speech, the Doctor is interupted by a call from the bridge which the staff greatly appreciate and promptly leave. Voyager is under attack by a rather weak Krenim vessel, posing no real threat. The Krenim Captain hails Voyager, informing the crew that the sector is no longer Zahl territory, but disputed area. He threatens Janeway with destruction of Voyager if they don't turn around. Despite the weakness of the Krenim vessel, Captain Janeway decides to go to yellow alert, setting a course to Zahl territory to get some answers. Janeway meets and speaks with a representative of the Zahl species, who assures them that the Krenim are nothing to worry about because the Zahl had overtaken them decades ago. However, their meeting is interrupted when the Krenim ship returns, claiming that Voyager was collaborating with the Zahl. The Krenim and the Zahl exchange harsh words, and Janeway tries to calm them down when an enormous wave of temporal energy approaches them. Try as they might to escape, they cannot, and all the ships are stuck. The wave arrives and, without warning, the Krenim ship doubles in size to a threatening warship, the Zahl ships and representative vanish, and Voyager appears to have taken damage, with Ensign Lang dead on the bridge. The egotistical Krenim captain fires on Voyager and hails them, threatening to board the ship and execute Voyager's crew. Janeway does not appreciate the threat, stating that it is been the week of hell. Act Two - Temporal Flux On Annorax's ship, he is pleased when his first officer tells him that the annihilation of the Zahl has restored the Krenim Imperium to 98% of its former capacity. Their territory now includes nearly 900 planets, thousands of ships, spanning nearly 15,000 light years. Still, Annorax must ask about the colony at Kyana Prime, one component that has never been restored, and is told that in this timeline, the Imperium does not extend that far. Disgruntled, he tells his crew to prepare a new set of calculations. Voyager is in trouble. Again under fire from Krenim ships, a sudden torpedo blast overloads the conduits on Deck 5, causing it to destabilize. As the Doctor desperately tries to evacuate sickbay, Janeway comes up with an idea and tells Tuvok to arm four of Voyager's eleven remaining torpedoes. The torpedoes are deployed like mines, which detonate along the Krenim's hull, finally destroying them. The Doctor manages to get his patients into a Jefferies tube, but as he is closing the door, he sees two crewmen struggling out of the turbolift. Time runs out, and the Doctor is forced to shut the door. Deck 5 explodes with a fury, blasting the outside of the hull in a blaze of fire that is quickly extinguished. Several injuries are reported, along with two casualties. Janeway leaves what is left of the bridge to Chakotay, who then follows her into her ready room. He declares that the crew should evacuate Voyager, leaving it behind. He thinks they should get into escape pods and shuttles, set a course for the Alpha Quadrant, and then rendezvous on the other side of Krenim space and regroup. Janeway, however, disregards that idea, stating that if the crew breaks up, they will lose the ability to pool their talents, and the Krenim would just pick them off one by one. Chakotay finds Janeway's lucky teacup, which he places on the desk just as Voyager comes under attack from more Krenim warships. Unseen to them, Janeway's lucky teacup falls off the desk and shatters. It is Day 47, and Voyager is barely recognizable. Its hull is almost completely covered in torpedo blast marks. Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres are trapped in a turbolift for six hours. B'Elanna is injured, and to pass the time, they ask each other trivia questions. Among the topics were 20th century entertainment, athletics, and interstellar history. Seven of Nine rescues them and informs B'Elanna that during the last Krenim attack, 19 power relays were severed, causing the turbolift system to go offline. B'Elanna wants to fix the EPS manifolds on deck eleven; however, her injuries are too severe and she is taken to the mess hall. Seven of Nine goes in her place. On the Bridge, Chakotay and Tom Paris brief Captain Janeway on a new design to save the ship from being destroyed in a cataclysmic breach. They use a modified version of the honeycomb bulkhead design of the steamship Titanic to create transverse bulkheads across the ship. The briefing ends early as the Doctor calls Tom to the Mess Hall because more wounded crewmembers are arriving. In a lower Jefferies tube on deck 11, section two, Seven of Nine is trying to make repairs when she discovers an undetonated Krenim torpedo lodged in the hull. She hails Tuvok and tells him to hurry to her position. Meanwhile, Annorax is preparing to eliminate yet another species from the timeline. He fires on the Garenor homeworld, erasing them from time, and then watches the shockwave emanate out from the lifeless world, ordered updates on changes in the timeline as they occur. On Voyager, Tuvok arrives at Seven's position, sees the weapon and orders them out. Seven, however, is desperately trying to discover the temporal flux of the weapon, because if she can then she can perfect her temporal shields which will defend Voyager from the torpedoes. She manages to find the variance as Tuvok drags her out, but the torpedo explodes before they can escape. Tuvok is blinded by the impact, but otherwise he and Seven are unharmed. She enters his quarters and offers to help him shave, an act which Tuvok says is a personal matter and is one of the things he needs to do alone. Seven tells Tuvok that she plans to take him on his customary rounds, and then to deflector control, because she had an inspiration about the temporal shields. She believes that the crew must alter the deflector geometry to the inverse of the temporal variance of the chroniton torpedoes. However, the ship comes under attack, and Tuvok heads for the bridge while Seven goes to deflector control. Tuvok steps off the turbolift and into his station. He instructs the computer to enable a tactile interface, which modifies his station to emit a series of beeps for Tuvok to recognize, sort of like audio braille. Janeway smacks her comm badge and calls for Seven to get the temporal shields online. Seven replies that they are almost complete. Tuvok states that Voyager cannot take anymore hits from the Krenim warship, and just before another torpedo hits, Seven gets the temporal shields online and the torpedo explodes uselessly. Act Three: The Underminement The Krenim ship ceases fire on Voyager, and refuses to talk to them when Janeway tries to hail. Janeway remarks that it is their mistake and orders Voyager brought about when Kim detects a large wave in the fabric of space-time moving towards them. Janeway orders Paris to move out of range, but there is no time. Praying that their new temporal shields will protect them, Janeway orders all crewmen to brace for impact. The temporal shockwave passes right through Voyager, which is indeed spared from the changes in the timeline by the temporal shields. As Janeway feels her ship rock less and less, Kim alerts her to the Krenim warship. The crew watches in astonishment as the powerful Krenim warship vanishes, and in its place sits a tiny vessel. Janeway inquires as to the location of the warship, but it is nowhere to be found. Janeway states that she is going to astrometrics and orders Seven to meet her there. Chakotay informs her that astrometrics took heavy damage and is flooded with radiation, but Janeway orders him to purge it clean, stating that the Krenim Imperium has reverted to a pre-warp state. Voyager's troubles could be over and she wants to find out why. Twenty light years away, Obrist informs Annorax that something is badly wrong, and that the Krenim Imperium has reverted to a pre-warp state. Annorax can't believe what has happened, and orders a scan of the region, which detects an anomalous component generating a temporal field. It is a vessel called Voyager. Displeased, Annorax orders a course set. In astrometrics on day 70, Janeway and Seven exchange ideas about what has transpired. Their previous scans of the region indicated thousands of Krenim vessels, nearly 900 inhabited worlds. But now, after the shockwave, everything is different. New scans show only a few planets and a smattering of vessels. The source of the shockwave is found twenty light years away at the Garenor homeworld. Voyager had passed the planet a few weeks ago. The planet is now mysteriously uninhabited. Janeway believes that they have happened across a temporal paradox (the shockwave affected the Garenor homeworld and all of space-time is affected as a result); however, the reason why the Krenim Imperium returned to a pre-warp state is still unclear. As they continue to work, Voyager suddenly begins to shake. The weapon ship has arrived. Act Four: Abandon Ship Annorax hails Voyager, stating that they have diverted him from his mission. Back on the bridge, Janeway realizes that he is responsible for the changes in the timeline. Annorax states that Voyager is far from home, and in a way so is he. But he continues by saying that only one of them can go home, and Voyager's sacrifice will save millions of lives. With a wish to study, Annorax transports Chakotay and Paris to his vessel, as well as ten square meters of Voyager's hull. He then generates a temporal beam which starts to push Voyager out of the space-time continuum. As the temporal shields begin to collapse, Seven of Nine observes that due to the weapon ship's incredible mass they cannot exceed warp six. Voyager can escape. However, Tuvok reminds her, with the shields down, Voyager will sustain massive damage while at warp. Janeway passes it off and engages warp seven as the temporal shields fail. Voyager's outer hull begins to rip from the ship under the stress. Safely away from the weapon ship on Day 73, Janeway prepares to give the order she swore she never would. She informs what is left of her crew that Voyager has sustained so much damage that she can no longer support her crew. She reports to many teary eyes that she is ordering them to abandon Voyager, to take escape pods and shuttles and set a course for the Alpha Quadrant. They are to try to secure faster or bigger ships if they can. And when Voyager is repaired and finds them again, which Janeway assures them they will, she expects them all to be in one piece, with some interesting stories to tell. She wishes them luck, and everyone departs Voyager. With seven people left on board, the work begins. Log Entries *''"Captain's log, stardate 51268.4. This morning's attack destroyed the power grid on deck eleven. No casualties this time but the replicator system was badly damaged. We've gone to emergency rations. As a result, the situation has gotten a little worse. Environmental controls continue to fail, seven decks have been rendered uninhabitable and we've had to relocate the crew. Quarters are close, nerves are frayed, and I'm not sure what's more difficult to maintain - Voyager's systems or the crew's morale. What's important... is that we're together, working towards a single goal - survival."'' Memorable Quotes "Who ever thought this eclectic group of voyagers could actually become a family? Starfleet, Maquis. Klingon, Talaxian, Hologram, Borg. Even Mr. Paris." : - The Doctor "You have the bridge. What's left of it." : - Kathryn Janeway, to Chakotay "I don't respond well to threats!" : - Kathryn Janeway, to the Krenim ship "Unless you've got something bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around." : - Kathryn Janeway, to Krenim ship "Shaving is hardly a life-threatening activity." : - Tuvok Background Information * The third-season episode "Before and After", in which Kes travels through time, gave a preview of this episode by showing a timeline in which Voyager had already been through the "Year of Hell". Kes' timeline is not related to any timeline seen in this episode, as she is obviously no longer aboard the ship. However, at the end of "Before and After," Janeway asks Kes to give any information she has on the Krenim, which she had experienced in her time jumps, and she agrees to file a report. However, dialogue from "Year of Hell" does not reflect any of the knowledge she shared, despite having named the Krenim. * In one scene, Seven of Nine tells Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres that the Borg were present when Zefram Cochrane launched his first warp-driven starship. She claims it is "complicated" when they ask her to elaborate. This is an acknowledgment of the events of Star Trek: First Contact, in which the Borg travel through time to assimilate Humans and remove their resistance, similar to what the Krenim did to the Zahl. * Kurtwood Smith previously played the Efrosian Federation President in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Thrax in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Things Past". * In this episode we get to see what happens to a starship when it goes to warp with its structural integrity field down. * This episode, along with the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect" , the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Visionary" and the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Twilight", form a genre of episode that some fans called the "Bad Dream" or "Reset Button" episodes. In each of these episodes, catastrophic events occur (or are about to occur, in the case of "Visionary"), and then a time-change returns everything back to normal. * We find in this episode that Captain Kathryn Janeway's birthday is May 20th. Links and References Guest Stars *John Loprieno as Obrist Special Guest Star *Kurtwood Smith as Annorax Co-Stars *Peter Slutsker as Krenim Commandant *Rick Fitts as Zahl official *Deborah Levin as Lang *Sue Henley as Brooks *Majel Barrett as Computer voice *Tarik Ergin as Ayala (uncredited) References 47; antibody; astrometrics; Borg chroniton; chroniton torpedo; Cochrane, Zefram; Cray; crew quarters emergency hand actuator; emergency rations; Emmanuel; escape pod; First Contact; force field; Garenor; Grid 005; hull breach; ''Intrepid''-class; intruder alert; Krenim; Krenim Imperium; Krenim patrol ship; Krenim temporal weapon ship; Krenim warship; Kyana Prime; mess hall; Neelix; parrises squares; Phoenix; R'Cho, M'Kota; Rilnar; sickbay; spacetime continuum; Strickler; structural integrity field; tactile interface; temporal incursion; temporal shield; ''Titanic'', RMS; transverse bulkheads; tricorder; turbolift Vassbinder Zahl; Zahl starship Category:VOY episodes de:Ein Jahr Hölle, Teil I es:Year of Hell, Part I nl:Year of Hell, Deel I